


Breathless

by renecdote



Series: hc_bingo 2017 [5]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Dystopian, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Jason is a good brother, Some Fluff, Some angst, being teleported to strange places sucks, even though he doesn't think so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-08
Updated: 2017-11-08
Packaged: 2019-01-31 02:07:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12666105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renecdote/pseuds/renecdote
Summary: Jason doesn’t know how long they’ve been in this strange, dystopian world. He just knows they need to get out as soon as possible.





	Breathless

**Author's Note:**

> For the "dystopian" square on my hc bingo. Thanks to the anon who left this prompt: For dystopia- Jason and Damian end up trapped in a dystopian wasteland and are trying to survive, but the air is bad and regardless of how trained he is, Damian is a child and his lungs are struggling and making him weak.

“Just a little bit further.”

They make it another seven feet before Damian stumbles. Jason pulls him back up by his hood and this time he keeps his fingers clenched around a fistful of the material for when it inevitably happens again.

It's been three days. Maybe longer. It's hard to tell whether this world moves at the same speed their world does. For all Jason knows, it could have been over a week since they arrived. Time certainly feels like it's dragging on forever.

“Just a little bit further,” he says again. Where further is, exactly, he's not sure. He just knows that they have to keep moving until they find somewhere that will provide some shelter. Or someone who can tell them where the fuck they are and how to get home.

Damian stopped calling him out on his bullshit a while ago. Twelve hours, maybe, somewhere between one clump of dead trees and the trickling stream they'd found. Stream is really a generous word for what it was, though, and Jason isn't even sure it was water. It had been faintly pink and more than a little sweet. They'd drank it anyway. At this point, it didn't really matter. If they don't find a way out of this hell soon, they're going to be dead whether they drank some weird, poisonous, alien liquid or not.

“Where...” It’s breathy and weak and the first word Damian has spoken in hours. Jason would be relieved if it wasn't followed immediately by a ragged coughing fit. “Where are we going?”

Jason doesn't answer. He doesn't know. At this point they're just going wherever they end up.

Damian wastes precious breath on a sigh. “Should have… stayed still.”

They'd argued about it as soon as it became clear this wasn't a weird dream and any potential rescuers were likely far away. Damian had been adamant they should stay where the strange beam (magic, energy, whatever the fuck it was) had spat them out. Jason had been adamant they needed to get out of the… city is too strong a word, but there'd been skyscrapers and shops and strange vehicles lining tarred streets. Just not a single soul in sight. Not out of sight either; every window they'd peaked through, every building they'd broken into, had shown homes just as abandoned as the one they'd appeared in.

At first it had just been eerie. An empty city with an odd green sky. Then Jason had picked up a newspaper and it had become dangerous. 

**_AIR TOXICITY REACHES DANGEROUS LEVELS. EVACUATION ADVISED._ **

That's not what it had said; it hadn't been in English. But the images had painted a graphic picture and some of the words had been strangely familiar enough to get the general idea. Staying meant death. They needed to get out, find somewhere with fresh, unpolluted air. 

(They needed to get back home.)

“If we’d stayed there you would probably be dead by now,” Jason says. It's not even arguing anymore, they're both too worn down for even that. It's just facts. Just saying things to remind themselves they can still be heard, that this wasteland of a country or planet or whatever it is may be devoid of life, but they still have each other.

Damian stumbles again. Coughs. And coughs and coughs and Jason thinks:  _ It's not going to stop. This time it's really not going to stop. Not until he runs out of breath and then it will just be  _ **_me_ ** _ trapped here.  _ Until the air eventually gets him too, at least. The newspaper article had estimated a healthy adult would survive two weeks. Children as little as five days. He doesn't need the facts to know Damian is running out of time. 

“Let's take a break,” he suggests.

A stubborn head shake. A vehement “no, we must… must get…”

“Get  _ where _ ?” Jason throws back, suddenly angry. He shakes the kid by his hood and swears he hears his teeth rattle. Although maybe it's just his lungs. In a second Jason is going to feel guilty about that, but right now he's just feeling a hot flash of sudden, frustrated anger. “There’s nowhere  _ to _ get! And even if there was, we're not going to get there when you can hardly breathe!”

Damian lifts one hand and Jason is sure he's about to hit him, but then he just undoes the clasp connecting his hood to the rest of him and drops to his knees. Calling it a coordinated fall would be generous. He stays there on his hands and knees, coughing and gasping, while Jason feels like the worst big brother in the world. He doesn't even know whether he should comfort the kid. Hell, if they were anywhere other than this place, he wouldn't even be contemplating it. Damian wouldn't  _ need _ it.

“You're-” wheeze “-an arse, Todd.”

Jason sighs, anger flooding out and exhaustion flooding in. He sits down on the hard dirt ground beside Damian and for a long time they just stare off into the distance. Into the barren nothingness they've been trudging through for however many days it's been. Something shimmers in the corner of Jason’s vision and he turns toward it only for it vanish again. False hope. Nothing there. His mind playing tricks. Beside him, Damian drops his gaze to stare morosely at his boots.

“Hey,” Jason says eventually, nudging the kid. He gets a fuzzy glare in return. “Your dad’s gonna come.”

Damian picks at a knot in his laces. “Tt. He is your dad too.”

“Yeah,” Jason says because it's not worth arguing. Not right now. And if it's Damian acknowledging that Bruce was a parent long before he came along? That's gotta be some kind of next-level progress. If Dick was here, he'd be proud.

If Dick was here, he probably would have gotten them out of this by now. Annoyingly good little soldier that he is. It's like he's made up of seventy percent skill, ten percent good luck and twenty percent unyielding optimism strong enough to bend to universe to his will. Jason is just a hundred percent helpless right now.

Damian slumps against him and Jason drapes an arm around his shoulders. It's not cold - the one good thing about this place is that the temperature has been consistently pleasant - but the kid curls against Jason’s side like he's seeking warmth. “I'm glad you're here Todd-” Something about the brat’s voice warns Jason not to feel any fuzzy feelings just yet. “-instead of Drake.”

Jason snorts. “Wow. High compliments, kiddo.”

Damian's answering smirk is small and fleeting. They fall into silence, save for the rasp of Damian’s breath as he tries to suck in enough air. Jason forces himself not to concentrate on it, not to think about the tightness that has been creeping into his chest as well. Instead, he stares down at the dark hair against the blood red emblem across his chest and thinks:  _ What would Bruce do? How would he get us out of here? _

And the answer comes surprisingly quickly: he’d call Superman. Jason almost laughs because why didn't he think of that earlier? That's what you do when you're in a hopeless situation, right? You call for help.

“Clark.” It's barely a whisper. Jason clears his throats and yells again, “Clark! Superman! If you can hear us, we need a little help!”

Silence. His voice doesn't even echo in the open landscape. No blur of colour, no boom of the sound barrier being broken by super speed, no sudden rescue. Jason still holds his breath, he's sure Damian is doing the same. A minute ticks by, two, three. Ten. Twenty. He drops his head, blinks rapidly and tells himself he's not going to cry just because his stupid, last-ditch attempt at conjuring up a rescue didn't work.

“Sorry, kid,” he murmurs.

Damian shrugs one shoulder. Coughs. “You tried.”

Silence.

Then a thump

Grey dust rises into the air. 

Jason shields Damon’s nose and mouth instinctively; his lungs don't need anymore foreign particles settling into them. When he looks up, all he can do is blink as his mind processes what he's looking at. 

“Todd?” Damian whispers. Jason suspects it's less because of how he's reacting and more because it's the loudest his waning voice can manage. “Am I hallucinating?”

Jason squeezes his shoulders, finally letting a grin strtch his lips. “Nah, kid, I see him too.”

Superman smiles down at them. “You have no idea how much drama you guys have caused,” he says as he hauls them into his arms. “Batman is going out of his mind with worry.”

And then they're flying through the air faster than the speed of light before Jason can argue that Bruce doesn't know how to worry. He laughs instead. A little strangled and hysterical. He can't believe it  _ worked _ . 

Damian grins back up at him. The kind of gleeful grin even Dick is rarely treated to. And Jason knows he did good. Then the kid devolved into another coughing fit and Jason winces. So maybe he only solved one problem, but it's better than nothing. It's better than being  _ dead _ . (Again.)

He doesn't know how much longer it is before Superman is touching down in the Bat Cave and they're stumbling forward into more pairs of worried arms. Jason turns his head to follow Damian as he's carried away by Bruce, Dick hovering anxiously beside them. He takes a deep breath of blessedly clean air and let's himself relax. Damian is in good hands now. Jason can go. Back to his safe house, back to his life as the lone wolf of the family, back to the sweet taste of Gotham’s special brand of pollution, best experienced on a rooftop at night.

But then the kid twists around, searching him out, and Jason pauses.  _ Well, _ he thinks,  _ maybe I can stay for a little while. Just to make sure he's really gonna be okay. _ It's what a good big brother would do after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr is [here](tantalum-cobalt.tumblr.com).


End file.
